Top EU court: Uber is just another transportation service

Enlarge / In this photo illustration the new smart phone taxi app 'Uber' shows how to select a pick up location on July 1, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. Taxi drivers in various cities have been on strike over unlicensed car-hailing services. (credit: David Ramos/Getty Images)

The Court of Justice of the European Union, the bloc's top court, has ruled that Uber is properly classified as a transportation service and as such can be regulated under member states' local laws.

Uber had previously claimed, as it has in the United States, that as merely a "platform" or "intermediation service" that simply connects those who want rides with those who seek them, it is not bound by historic taxi and other transportation rules. Stateside, the company initially ran roughshod through local regulations and, in many cases, got state and local governments to create an entirely new class of regulations for "transportation network companies" or TNCs.

The CJEU didn't buy it.

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